REVENUE FROM BETS

Shannon News, 1 June 1926, Page 2

REVENUE FROM BETS

INQUIRY IN BRITAIN. VIEWS FOR AND AGAINST LONDON, March 10. It Jis announced that the Chancellor of th e Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, has prepared a ' memorandum on betting and that this has been circulated to members of the Cabinet.. For some weeks the Treasury nuts been engaged, at the instance of tne Chancellor, in examination of tne various methods by which such tax might be imposed, and its . probable yield. A minority of' Ministers are said to be opposed to the scheme in any form, on puritanical grounds, considering it improper for the Government to take any step which would give' 1 officials recognition to forms or betting which are at present illegal. It was accordingly, felt that no useful purpose would bo served by advancing a definite proposal for suen a tax unless it could b e shown that the yield would bo considerable. Arriving at even, a rough estimate or this yield has proved very difficult there being little reliable (lata on which to proceed, bujt it is understood that the memorandum, whicn may be taken to err well on the side ot moderation, anticipates that at lease from £10,000,000 to' £l2,ooo,otni would accrue to the Exchequer. For the present it cannot be said that a definite proposal is before tne Cabinet, but rather that a series q,f suggestions as to the manner in which the tax might be. collected have been prepared. Among these it is advanced [that’ totalisators might be erected at one or two of the racecourses at which frequent and. largely-attended meetings are held, and that tney might be operated by a travelling teennical sfraff. A general application of the [totalisator is not considered feasible, however, and other metnods duscussed by the Select Committee which examined the proposal in 1823 are thought to bo more suitable ror application in this country. “Faddists of New Zealand.”

Sporting papers are up in arms against any suggestion of a tax on betting, some making references ro die “Faddists of New Zealand.” - The Sunday Sportsman publishes a twocolumn letter of warning from tne

Sports Defence Committee and asns its readers to cut it out and send n to their members of Parliament. Among other thing's the writers state that a tax on betting would have 'tne effect of reducing attendances a’ 1 acecourses. The value of the prizes would be less .owners would gradually drop out, and the capital invested in breeding would assume microscopic proportions. • The big prices given for bloodstock would, in consequence disappear. With racing disastrously affected there would in all probability be a subsidy needed —which obtains in some countries —for the breeding of light horses.

“There is also another aspect to wo considered. Any tax on betting would need the repeal of the Arif of 1853, which suppressed betting houses, its it would be necessary to legalise ready-money betting ,and set up ready-money betting Houses all over th e country. They were such a scandal that the 1853 Act. vyas passed to wipe them ouit. “The gradual abolition of stablest and meetings would entail much onemployment and distress, and, thoui.1 ands of men, most of them unemployable save in .stables, would be thrown on the dole, to the furtner depletion of the itax-payers’ pockqis. By tho time things had reached this pass, if not before, even the most optimistic permanent official would have realised that fiis dream or a revenue of £10,000,000 per year nan vanished into thin air. In an article in the Daily Mail, Sir Walter Gilbey explains (that nis chief object in taking tip the matte; of a tax was that the small cash nerhi'ing open to prosecution. “As « racing man myself,” he says, " i lor should have the same facilities as the large credit bettors without' take up tho position that a muen larger number of people bet on horseracing, football, coursing, and whip-pet-racing than most of us imagine. Betting - , in my opinion, is ndt onry to pleausre ,but a hobby of many Britons. A Great Field for Revenue.

“I feel certain in that if the. betting transactions that daily take place throughout Great Britain were unearthed ,th e prodigious field for revenue would agreeably surprise even the Chancellor of the Exchequer A tax which was not oppressive would b c an injustice neither to bookmaker nor backer. As tne money would come from the sporting community, T think a part of It should be ear-marked for assisting horse-breeding, hospitals and agriculture.

“Would a tax on betting ‘deliver the goods,’ ” asks T^i e Times, ”or would it fail in the last resort through difficulties of collection. That is really it he crux of the whole matter, and it may bo hoped that Mr. Churchill's public detachment is due in part to the fact that his inquiries in this direction are incomplete. Clearly the problem bristles, if not with ’insurmountable objections,* at least with a difficult choice or methods.

“Thus any formal recognition or bookmakers, who would presumably be registered and classified, would involve the strict abolition of annul horised practioners. That in itself would be no light task, and tne Government musk probably make up its mind that there would always no a certain amount of evasion. At hast there would be justice between classoss in any change of system from the present glaring discrimination between rich and poor.”